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Legacy of Courage

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Paula Mints's mother, Elaine Rothwell, suffered from schizophrenia. Legacy of Courage is the story of Elaine's life and her brutal death, as seen through Mints's eyes. It's also the story of how one daughter discovered her mother and the love they had for each other.

Mints's childhood was tumultuous and unhappy. She treasures a few early memories of her happpy and pretty mother teaching her to curl her hair, comforting her, or listening to her stories. But Mints also remembers seeing her mother hitting her head against the wall to quiet the voices tormenting her, and she remembers the subdued, but not healed, woman who returned from a series of electric shock treatments.

What Mints remembers most is the day her mother disappeared, and the phone call she got three years later asking her to come to the morgue and identify Elaine's body. She began a search then for the man who had raped and murdered a homeless insane woman. Working by herself, she found enough evidence for the police to make an arrest. She then endured an eight-year wait for that man to be brought to trial, "determined to prove that the murderer's victim was more than just another crazy homeless person, but someone once loved and treasured who deserves vindication."

One of the most moving and powerful books I've read in a long time, Legacy of Courage not only details a fight for justice and the effects of the fight on the victim's family, it's also "ultimately the chronicle of one woman's cathartic journey to the roots of forgiveness and the flowering of peace." Devoid of pretensions and permeated with truth, it's a book that can't be put down once started.

Legacy Of Courage is the true and riveting story of Paula Mints' search for her mother's killer and her own identity. Lucia Elaine Rothwell had been homeless, living in a cardboard box, and ended up savaged and brutally murdered. Paula, as a young girl, barely survived her childhood years when her mother's mental condition distorted reality. Paula describes the harrowing days of her mother's decent into schizophrenia and her father's ultimate abandonment, of trying to care for her mother whose condition was worsening. But when authorities failed to commit her mother to a psychiatric hospital, Lucia disappeared -- until the day the Coroner's office contacted Paula with the devastating news of her mothers homicide. Legacy Of Courage is the story of how Paula came to terms with the death of her mother, the pain of her own past, and the guilt she felt for losing touch. It's also the story of a justice system apathetic to the plight of the homeless and Paula's becoming adamant in proving that the murderer's victim was not some anonymous homeless person, but a human being once loved and part of a family. Paula sets out to bring her mother's murderer to justice. Legacy Of Courage is a true story that compels the reader with a real-life drama that exceeds anything thought up by some Hollywood scriptwriter.

I thought that the book was very well written and engaging. Ms. Mints writes very well and draws you in from the beginning. It is one of the better books that I have read as it is real and powerful...showing the side of mental illness that so many of us fear and rarely talk about.

Legacy of Courage was a book that wrapped itself around my heart and made me feel the emotions of a family and their painful challenges of watching the woman in the center of it all struggle for survival. It gave me insight on the horrific bad luck of being genetically challenged w/schizophrenic genes. How a woman vacilated between living her life in a drug induced state that allowed her to function in society and just wanting to be. I can't imagine being controlled by voices that inhabit your every thought. This book allowed me to appreciate my own blessings and left me feeling empathetic to the author who no doubt painfully poured out her heart and soul so that other's could learn and understand through her mother's story, thereby allowing the legacy of her mother to live on, while putting to rest so many of her own struggles. A truly moving book, with inspiration for anyone dealing with a challenge in their life.

Paula's story is a must for anyone working in the mental health field. Reading about what it is like to have a mother who is schizophrenic is something one does not get in classroom texts. I was deeply moved by both the book as well as seeing her last night at a book reading in Campbell, California. Everyone will be affected by this cogent narrative.

This book is good but not what I expected. Actually I never was able to finish it because it never gets to the point. I am a true crime fan and did not think this book feel into true crime category.
It is a book about how Paula's life turns out because of the event of her father's death.